Updated May 31, 2026, 3:36 p.m. PT<\/p>\n
Countdown to kickoff is back! USC will kick off\u00a0its 2026 football season<\/a>\u00a0on August 29 when the\u00a0Trojans<\/a>\u00a0host San Jose State at the Coliseum. In this series, we will be counting down the days until the season opener by highlighting a notable Trojan who wore each number.<\/p>\n Today, we look at Claude Pelon, a defensive lineman who made two huge plays for USC during the 2010s.<\/p>\n Position:\u00a0Defensive line<\/p>\n Years played at USC:\u00a02014-2015<\/p>\n Career highlights:\u00a0Originally from Orlando, Florida, Pelon spent the first three years of his collegiate career at junior college, before transferring to USC in 2014. In two seasons with the Trojans<\/a>, he recorded 46 tackles and four sacks.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Pelon made two particularly memorable plays during his time in Cardinal and Gold. In a 2014 game at Arizona<\/a>, he blocked a field goal that proved to be massive in the Trojans’ upset of the No. 10 Wildcats. Then in the 2015 Crosstown Showdown vs. UCLA, Pelon had a strip sack of Bruins<\/a>‘ quarterback Josh Rosen that teammate Rasheem Green picked up and ran back for a Trojans touchdown.<\/p>\n After USC: Pelon signed with the New York Jets<\/a> as an undrafted free agent following the 2016 NFL Draft. He appeared in one game for the team in 2017, recording two tackles. Pelon also briefly spent time with the Tennessee Titans<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated May 31, 2026, 3:36 p.m. PT Countdown to kickoff is back! USC will kick off\u00a0its 2026 football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5843,53,3154,182,33253,33254,33255,33263,33264,33270,33269,33258,33267,33257,7736,33260,33261,7728,7727,6735,33268,33256,7730,33262,33265,33266,33259,5846],"class_list":["post-57109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthropic","tag-accessfree","tag-anthropic","tag-anthropic-claude","tag-claude","tag-sourcetrojans-wire","tag-sstssportscollegetrojansfootball","tag-sstsnfootball","tag-tagarizona-wildcats","tag-tagarizona-wildcats-football","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagcgr-sports","tag-tagcollege-football","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagfootball","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagncaa-pac-12-conference","tag-tagnew-york-jets","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-draft","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagrasheem-green","tag-tagsouthern-california-trojans-football","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtennessee-titans","tag-tagucla-bruins","tag-tagucla-bruins-football","tag-tagusc-trojans","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}